


I don't dream of sleeping

by Gnilnim27



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark, Developing Relationship, Insomnia, M/M, Poor Will, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnilnim27/pseuds/Gnilnim27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will can't sleep. Hannibal helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't dream of sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling so down today I had to write this.

_Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords  
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole_

_‘To sleep’ John Keats_

 

 

Will can’t sleep. Haven’t slept for days actually.

He stays up at night, eyes staring at nothing and listens to the leaves rustling outside and the sound of his dogs breathing. He listens to the scrapping sound of insects upon the windowsill that sounds so like the noise of fingernails scratching against a table. He closes his eyes but he doesn’t sleep.

It gets so bad that his vision starts to blur like a washout photograph, left too long in its solution until the colours run. Everything is too bright and too loud. He goes through work in a daze. It feels like a dream but it isn’t. He comes home, collapses into the bed. He thinks he falls asleep but in the next two, three, four hours he’s staring at the ceiling again like it is the only view that matters in the whole world.

 

\--

 

He’s nodding off in his office, not quite awake but not asleep either when Alana walks in.  
“Will,” she says gently. He pulls upright and blinks bloodshot eyes at her. He knows what he looks like. He can see it from her eyes and the way her mouth presses into an unhappy line. 

“Go home,” she urges him to his feet. He doesn’t stumble and shakes her off.

“I’m fine.” The lack of sleep has given his voice a hard, cruel edge. He blinks again as the room sways.

“I’ll drive you,” Alana offers.

Will stares at her. The suggestion swirls around his mind like floating puzzles as he tries to snatch them from the air. They make sense but mean nothing to him. His glasses slip down his nose and Alana’s face fades to a blur. Good. Will doesn’t like seeing her so sad.

He leaves her without saying anything.

 

\--

 

Will likes to think there is a reason for his insomnia. He sees dead people every time he closes his eyes or he feels himself slip deeper into someone else skin each time he lets his mind wander.

But there is no reason. He doesn’t see anything. He doesn’t feel anything. He just can’t fall asleep.

He sits the whole night on the couch, eyes half-mast. And he waits.

 

\--

 

The light turns from a misty white to blue to a hint of orange gold before there is a knock on the door. Will ignores it, still watching the sun peek in from his curtains, stealing into the room in its own unwritten time accompanied by an orchestra of birdsong that he never realized before. 

He hears the pounding of the door as if from a faraway place. “Will!”

He drags himself out from the half slouch and opens the door cautiously. Jack glares at him, looking both relieved and annoyed. He smiles sharply. “I thought you had died.” 

Will fakes a yawn. Jack doesn’t seem to buy it but Will doesn’t care. He doesn’t let Jack in and he doesn’t open the door any wider.

“Dr. Bloom says you haven’t been sleeping,” Jack says.

Will takes his time to answer. “Let me change,” he says and tries to close the door.

Jack lets out an exasperated sigh. “Have you been listening to a word I said? You’re not going anywhere, Will. I don’t want you going to work. You’re going to tuck yourself in and get some goddamn sleep,” he snaps. “Take some pills if you have to.”

“It’s just a mild sleeping disorder,” Will lies. Even Jack’s anger feels muted and dull. 

“Get. Some. Sleep. And don’t come to the BAU until you look bushy tailed and bright eyed and not like roadkill. I’ll be sending someone to check in on you.” Jack walks back to his car and Will waits until he leaves.

He stands at the door for ten minutes, feeling the morning chill and not quite remembering what he was supposed to do.

 

\--

 

The water running down his back is red, red, red. He tilts his head up and lets it coat his face and tongue. It smells like iron but he doesn’t taste anything. He soaks it up, into every pore, like a tragic flower in a deserted garden, desperate for any form of rain even if it was a red rain.

Will shivers. His skin wrinkled a long time ago. He feels old and he thinks he’s been standing on slippery tiles for years and years. He watches a drop of water hang from an eyelash, see the world condensed in to a ball and he blinks it away. Just like that, he has destroyed a world.

Hands grab his shoulders and maneuvers him around. Will slams back into reality, body shuddering with the shock as he starts to struggle. He remembers his gun is in the bedroom. 

“Will. _William_.”

Will blinks the blood – _water_ – out of his eyes and comes face to face with Hannibal. “I – uh…what…?”

Hannibal has taken off his suit jacket and tie and vest. His sleeves are rolled up, baring his pale arms in a way that is strange and surreal to Will. The grip on his arms is firm and hard enough to ground him. Hannibal is getting wet. Will thinks it is terribly funny.

“Will, can you hear me?” Hannibal asks. Drops of water are spraying on his face which reminds Will of those melted plastic drops on fake flowers.

“I’m sleep deprived,” Will slurs. “Not crazy.”

Hannibal smiles. “Of course not.” He hesitates but once he’s sure Will won’t topple, he steps out of the shower and grasps for a towel on the sink. Will stays where he is, swaying back and forth. The water is red again. 

“I’m bleeding,” Will mutters.

“You’re not bleeding,” Hannibal says calmly. He gestures for Will to come out. Will sighs and allows himself to be pulled near and wrapped in a towel. Hannibal leans close and reaches behind him to turn of the shower. There’s the odd squeaking the tap always make, grating and unpleasant as Hannibal turns it. Will grimaces. 

“Stay still,” Hannibal says, tone gentle but commanding. So Will complies and stays very still as Hannibal dries him, running the towel across his back and under his arms. The material is slightly worn from use and feels coarse on Will’s overly sensitized cold skin. Hannibal stoops and dries his legs, starting from his ankles and running the towel up to his thighs, movements slow, like he’s drawing out the moment until Will starts to feel his muscles quiver. When he feels the press of cloth between his legs he can’t help the soft moan that escapes, eyes fluttering close. He stops it as soon as it is out.

Hannibal carries on like he hasn’t heard. Then he leads Will to the bedroom and helps him change into a soft flannel pants and cotton shirt. If Will wasn’t so tired, he would have protested. But as it is, he doesn’t say anything as Hannibal pulls the pants up, warm fingers trailing up his sides and resting on the small of his back. He pulls Will close as he fits on the shirt. Hannibal is slightly damp from the shower but he smells clean and arboreal and real.

“When did it start?” Hannibal asks, rubbing soothing circles into Will’s back.

“I don’t remember,” Will says honestly. He feels a bone deep tiredness settle over him but his eyes won’t droop. There’s a slow thud at the back of his skull, a hammer of his consciousness refusing to let him drift.

Will turns his head by inches. This close, Hannibal looks human, less like a living statue and more like a man. Will can make out the fine growth of stubble throughout the day and the lines on Hannibal’s face which doesn’t make him look old so much as lends a realism, makes Hannibal softer and touchable.

“Was it Jack?” Will asks quietly.

“Dr. Bloom, actually,” Hannibal replies.

“Liar.”

It must be his exhausted brain that makes him nose along Hannibal’s jaw, mouth slightly open. Hannibal lets him press his lips to the side of his mouth, a not quite kiss. Will pulls away and waits for a reaction but Hannibal just looks. So Will presses his lips against Hannibal’s, a touch rather than a kiss. Then Hannibal’s hand slides around his throat and holds him in place as he tilts his head up.

Will opens his mouth readily. He feels Hannibal smile against his lips, not taking the invitation but squeezing Will’s throat just that much tighter. It send a shiver through him straight to his cock. When Hannibal finally kisses him, it’s not the punishing clash of teeth and tongue that Will is expecting. It’s slow and painfully sweet, Hannibal taking his time to explore, tongue pushing against Will’s own in a sensuous dance that makes his toes curl.

Will can’t recall the last time anyone kissed him like this, filled with promise and dark intent but never demanding, never taking. He pushes against Hannibal, trying to make it into something more but Hannibal pulls back and slowly walks him to the bed. He pushes Will down onto the mattress and sits beside him. Will feels the bed dip.

“You need sleep, Will.” 

Will shakes his head sluggishly. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“ _Can’t_.”

Hannibal hands him a glass from the bedside table. “Drink.”

“What is it?” Will asks suspiciously.

“Water.”

Hannibal watches as he gulps it down, eyes roving over his throat. He takes the glass away when Will finishes and settles back beside Will. Will pulls a pillow under his head. “So we’re just going to sit here.”

“Yes,” Hannibal says. Will thinks it’s not fair at all but he doesn’t say anything more. Somewhere between watching Hannibal watch him, Will falls asleep.

 

\--

 

When he wakes up, he can hear Hannibal in the kitchen. He stumbles groggily to the hall, feeling like he slept for days. His body is stiff but at least his head doesn’t feel like lead.

“You’re awake,” says Hannibal, sounding pleased. He hands Will another glass of water.

“How long was I out?” Will asks, voice cracking. He drinks the water gratefully,

“Eighteen hours.”

“Fuck.”

Hannibal makes a soft sound. “Language, Will.”

Will stares at the window, trying to make out the time of day through the curtains before turning to study the glass in his hand. “You gave me benzodiazepine, didn’t you?” he asks, accusingly.

Hannibal just smiles.


End file.
